


Transcon Truck Tales

by d__T



Category: Mad Max 1979
Genre: blink and you'll miss it Joe/Eric/Richy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-23 07:02:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4867589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d__T/pseuds/d__T
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Punk ass kid needs money to fix his pickup truck and figures "what the hell" when he sees the 'HIRING' sign. Grenades & Armalites ensue.</p><p>Gen no ship rifle lovin' goodness right now, tags & ratings will be updated as the fic progresses.</p><p>AU fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sign says HIRING in faded red peeling letters. It’s said that for a long time now, and this is the first time Indigo’s needed money bad enough to consider it. So he parks his pickup in the empty gravel lot, angled for quick departure and walks into the office. The door chimes as he pushes it open, stung brass casings clattering along the frame of it. Peripherally he notes that half the front part of the building is divided into two rooms, one perhaps locked, while the part with the desks has rather a lot of shotguns leaning up against the desks. ****

“Kin I help ya, son?” The drawl comes from the man largely hidden behind where his boots are thrown up on the desk.

Selfconsciously, Indigo adjusts his flannel _buttoned, good_  and addresses the boot soles that are still presented to him. “Sign says yer hiring.”

“Sign always says we hirin’.”

Indigo does not know what to do with that information. He waits for more, but Boots neither offers more nor moves.

“So hire me. I can drive.”

“Son, yeh sound like yer twelve, and yeh look like yer _ten_. Go home, kid.”

Indigo bristles and restrains the urge to shout all the way down to an unsteady calm tone. “I’m nine _teen_.” It _almost_ doesn’t sound petulant, but at least he’s not shouting.

He steps up to the desk and open handed slaps his license down on it. Boots laughs at him, but scrapes the license off the desk anyway. Boots sqings his legs down off the desk and inspect the card: bends it, bites it, sniffs it, shines a little purple light on it. With a near incredulous tone in his voice, he says, “Agrees here with yeh, kid. An it looks like the real shit. He shakes his head and slaps the card back down on the desk. “No idea _how_  you slanties don’t fuckkin age.”

Indigo bristles again, manages to keep the keep the growl in his throat instead of growling at the man that looks like he might still hire him. He can _feel_  his mom being disappointed in him as he remains silent.

The man goes on about how the job is dangerous, how it’s reccomended to have a crew, etc, etc and it feels very much like a clipboard mandatory speech right up until Boots asks what he drives. Indigo points through the barred windows at the mud spattered blue GMC pickup in the lot. The man nods, makes a note.

“Weapons experience?”

Indigo lists off a variety of shotguns, a rifle and a handgun, notes that he can make Molotov Cocktails- at which Boots makes a note - and mentions that he’s got a solid rock throwing arm.

Boots makes several more notes before asking, “Ever driven a big rig?”

Honestly, Indigo shakes his head no.

Another note made, followed by pencil tapping. The man makes a phone call during which the only thing he says is Indigo’s license number and “mhmm” a couple of times.

The phone clicks down and the pencils sumped on the desk. Boots stands and extends his hand for a handshake.

“Welcome aboard, kid. You’re hired.”

Indigo shakes Boots’ hand and tries to identify the taught feeling in his chest to no avail.

“Yeh start next week on Rig 306. Assigned shotgun until you know the ropes. Survive two months, you get to choose to stay on with your mentor crew, join a different crew, or pick your own rig. Pay is: food, boarding, munitions, protection for your personal vehicle while you’re on the road, and cash proportional to distance driven and cargo delivered.”

Indigo nodes, swamped by the infodump. Sill leaves him with fuck-all to do until next week, and with a pickup running on fumes...

He decides he’s new, so he can ask the naive questions. “What the usual crew set up? Can I see the munitions?”

Boots laughs and starts explaining as he leads the way over to the locked room.

“Typically a sriver and one to three co-drivers. They take turns driving and defending the ruck. Sometimes families-” Boots whistles “-shotgun mama, you know?”

The door unlocks with a rattle and thud, and a light automatically clicks on somewhere in the depths of the room. Indigo stumbles to a halt in the doorway, dumbfounded by the armory. There’s just about any firearm a person could prefer in there, alongside grenades and miscellaneous melee weapons. He makes a small pleased sound and drifts towards the grenades.

Boots carries on with a chuckle. “The shotgun mama crews, some of the best ones we’ve got. Protective like an angry mama bear.”

“An’ then there’s the Suicide Drivers. They go alone, faster lighter rigs. Sometimes carrying higher value cargo, sometimes nothing at all, just decoy.”

Indigo’s not really listening, but some part of him is still paying attention. He’s in love with the grenades.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the shortest interlude ever

The week he has to wait out. He ends up walking a lot, out of gas for his pickup truck, out of money for food, and out of game to get a couch to sleep on.

He _hates_ waiting.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet the truckers and the truck.

He shows up on the appointed day, looking hungry and somewhat disheveled. He’s early though, and Boots lets him into the armory because Indigo’s pacing is annoying him. Nevertheless, he hangs out in the door as Indigo roams through the room because there’s nothing else going on.

“Never seen a kid like grenades as much as you do.”

Indigo shrugs continues assembling himself a kit: mostly grenades, a rifle, and a knife nearly as long as his forearm.

Kit assembled but the adoptive crew not arrived yet, Indigo slumps into a pile outside the door to the office. Backpack full of everything he owns beside him, and his new weapons kit between his crossed legs, he flicks his lighter lit, and off. Lit and off. Lit and off.

Boots disappears somewhere into the back of the building for a while and returns some time later with three men in tow. They’re laughing and horsing around, but it falls quiet when they see Indigo.

“Shit, Boots. Y’weren’t kidding when y’said he was a kid!”

“Ay, kid, shouldn’t you be in school or somethin’?”

The third man just laughs with the other two.

“...school’s out. ‘ kin do what I want now.” He tries to sass, tries to cover his shock at how familiar one of the men looks, but it falls flat and he silently commits himself to ranking as Suicide Driver as soon as he possibly can.

Boots does the introductions by pointing at people as he says their name. “’ere’s Indigo. An’ that’s Joe, Eric, and Ritchy.”

It’s Joe, the one who looks weirdly familiar. Indigo can’t remember where he would have seen him before, though.

“He’s yours for a month, and then we’re trading him south.”

Joe snorts. “Startin’ him out rough, aintchya?”

Boots shrugs. “Tol’ me he been out here alone ‘near eight months now. Figure he can handle it.”

The men look almost impressed, their estimation of the boy changing slightly with that information. Suddenly, the phone rings from inside the office and without answering it, Boots announces that their cargo is loaded so Indigo follows the men around back of the building.

There’s a rig there, battle welded and scabbed sides gleaming in the sun. The trailer’s got new plates on it and the tractor’s got a cow pusher on it, except it’s meant to force anything in the way under the wheels instead of pushing it out of the way. Joe leads the inspection: the three men check over the rig, test the cargo tie down, triple check the locks and the tractor/tractor hook ups. Indigo watches and take mental notes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How to Trucker: 101

They each have a domain within the truck, interlocking and dependent on each other for survival. Ritchy drives; they all do, but he's the best. Eric is the arms master and gunner. Joe is their leader and other gunner. And Indigo is an untested kid who can't even drive the truck. Useless, really.

So they teach him in the hundred miles before they cross into the danger zone. First to drive the truck, the most fundamental skill. Nothing fancy, just the basics on starting and stopping and turning the truck. He catches on pretty quickly, although he does [jackknife](http://gobytrucknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/sweet-potato-ridge-crash-jackknifed-semi.jpg) them bad enough that Ritchy has to unwedge them once. They’d all done that at least once, so no shame, only education.

Driving lessons for the day over, Eric shows him around the truck. Not much to see _inside_  the cab- his belongings and scant sleeping space had already been shown to him, but outside. Eric points out all the sightlines, the handholds, the blindspots and weak points along the cab and the flanks of the truck. Then they go for a walk- Richy obligingly slows down a little for them since it’s Indigo’s first topside walk -and Eric explains the armor and the welded scab patching on the sides.

“The packs don’t try ta damage the truck, they try ta stop it and kill us so they can _take_ the truck. They board back here where it’s harder for us to pick ’em off.”

"So we try t’force 'em up near the cab where it’s easy.” Eric’s smiling, silver filled tooth glinting sharp in the early afternoon sun.

Indigo stretches out his legs while he's topside- he never really expected to be walking _on_ the truck and tells himself to pick up some goggles the next time they're at one of the supply depots. Eric lets him hang out up there for a little while, wind roaring by them and threatening to peel Indigo's boots off the aluminum top but eventually he has to clamber back into the cab for Joe's lesson.

Joe doesn't have much for him- Indigo's not gonna be leading anything during his time in the truck, so they mostly sit up top the cab, with their feet dangling through the open sun roof and trading the occasional question.

They're still up there, well after they've passed the bodycount sign for this stretch of road through the danger zone and consequently they see the approaching pack first.

Too far away to see properly, Indigo scrambles and gets the binoculars for Joe. He shouts off what he sees so that the others in the cab know what's coming.

"At least five vehicles. Two pickups, some other car, a coupla motorcycles."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle is joined.

"Here we go, boys!" Joe shouts as the pack pulls up along the rear of the truck, jockying into position, lining up to make the run.

From inside the cab, there's a flurry of activity followed by their ritual response. "Got eyes on!"

Eric's ensconced himself like a lover in the gun slits opposite Ritchy, muzzle of his AK the only part of him visible from outside the truck. Ritchy's got a long handgun across his lap now, and a knife across the dash. Joe and Indigo are up top again, the vulnerable exposed position, protecting the flanks and Ritchy's side of the truck.

"Kid, shoot to kill boarders. Then shoot to kill vehicles. If they can't catch us, they can't board us."

Indigo nods, and chambers a round in his rifle. There's time before the battle is joined, so he sights down the trailer, checking his bracing and his blind spots, just making sure.

Joe starts to speak, but is drowned out as two motorcycles rip down either side of the truck, engines howling up to the rev limiter in unison. But they're not quite perfectly matched, and the harmonic they make is grating and unsettling. Indigo shivers and looks around, tracking them, sighting down his rifle at them.

Joe's not even perturbed by them. "The motorcycles are here to distract you." He isn't following them, instead tracking the rest of the pack as it pulls up along the trailer. "Do not become distracted."

He twitches back to get eyes on the pack, and there's a pickup leading a heavily modified Monte Carlo up Richy and Joe's side of the truck, while a pickup and a third motorcycle hauls up his and Eric's side.

There's several shots in quick succession from his left, and he sees two spang off the grill on the pickup, and the third pulled up at the last moment stings the windshield. The driver flinches and the truck swerves but pulls back in line as the riders on the back cuss and shout.

Below him, Eric lets loose with a short burst and the motorcycle behind the pickup swerves to take full cover beside it. There's a faint cackling from Eric, and then another burst of gunfire. Indigo doesn't feel like he can add anything to that, so he turns back to the pickup and the Monte Carlo.

The pickup is pulling up alongside the cab and for a brief moment, he makes eye contact with one of the men riding in the bed of the truck. And then one of them throws something, perhaps a rock, and it clangs off the window. Ritchy shouts and heels the truck over, slamming it into the side of the pickup. There's yelling as the pickup rumbles off the shoulder of the highway, and then scrabbles back on. But Joe's diverted attention to the Monte Carlo, and has just landed a shot or four neatly between the bars of the grill, puncturing the radiator. It's pissing coolant, leaving a trail down the asphalt, and the boarding party clinging to the back of the cab is suddenly eyeing the side of the trailer with a new urgency in their eyes and wicked metal spikes in their hands.

The first one clambers over the cab to get his footing on the broad hood of the car, makes the jump. There's a sound of tearing metal as he slams hooks and boots first against the side of the trailer. In a blind spot from Joe's vantage point, he can't be picked off, but the rest of the crew hiding on the car recieve a spattering of bullets.

Joe turns suddenly at the sound of gunfire from right beside him, the first shot Indigo's fired. In that moment, the rest of the boarding crew slams into the side of the trailer and the Monte Carlo peels off and skids to a steaming halt in the scrub. The pickup on that side has pulled ahead of the truck, and there's a rifleman in the back, taking potshots at the front of the truck. He doesn't have the angle to get at Indigo or Joe particularly well, but they have the entire back of the pickup laid out for them.

"Keep em down, kid." Joe slings his rifle over his shoulder, pats Indigo on the back, and then hoists himself onto the top of the cab. The jump to the trailer is easy for him, despite the unsettling sound of wounded metal rattling through the trailer under his feet. It's only a couple of steps to where the first boarder had impacted, and he gets down to peek over the edge. Looks right down the barrel of a pistol and throws himself back. The shot goes stray, but when hands start appearing over the edge of the trailer, he's ready with his gun to plink them off.

But when Indigo relays Richy's shout, he jumps up and takes a running dive into the cab of the truck, and Indigo follows him down. Richy pulls a lever, and the trucks engine howls as it's released from load, the truck itself staggering as it abruptly slows down. The remains of the pack whoosh by them, trying to slow down to match speed but still drawing ahead. Immediatly, Joe slings himself back onto the roof of the cab to get an eye on the boarding party again. There's fewer, he thinks, but an enterprising man is headed for the gap between the trailer and the cab. A couple of shots have him swinging back around to the side where he's safer.

Then, the truck engine growls, a guttural foot shaking grumble and the truck accelerates toward the pickup leading it down the road. Joe slips down the cab again, knowing where this is going.

Moments later, the pickup disappears from view as the truck plows into it. Most of the men riding it made the leap onto the truck, but they’re hung out like the other boarding party, their support vehicle in the shrubbery far behind. Richy swerves the truck and a couple of the men on the hood discover they’re not hooked on well enough and slide right off, fear in their eyes. The remaining handful scramble across the flat hood of the truck in a bid to take the cab before the guy with the AK comes out.

But it’s not to be as Eric and Joe brace themselves back to back through the hatch and pick off any bit of flesh that dares to show itself around the corners of the truck. The last pickup decides that surviving is the better part of winning, and nimbles its way around the front of the truck, coming to collect the remainder of the crew. All but one take the jump, the last scag dives for the cab as the others provide cover. But the angle is awkward, and he falls into the gap between the cab and the trailer. He almost makes it, but his mad struggle catches him in the wheels, and he gets pulled under.

The pickup splits, going back for its fallen brethren, and the truck continues onward, one pack of parasites shed from its metal sides.


End file.
